The Temptation of Elminster

Nineteen: More Blood Than Thunder

Saeraede's touch was cold…colder than icy rivers he'd plunged into, colder even than the bite of blue glacial ice that had once seared his naked skin.

Gods! Elminster struggled to catch his breath, too shocked even to moan. The face so close to his held no hint of triumph, only anxious concern. El stared into those beautiful eyes and roared out his pain in a wordless shout that echoed around the cavern.

It was answered a moment later by a greater roar, a rumbling that shook the cavern and split its gloom with a flash of light…a flash that made all of the runes briefly catch fire, and sent a slim, stealthy figure shrinking back hastily into its crevice, unregarded.

One of her best spells, shattered like a glass goblet hurled to stones…and it could not be any doing of this helpless, shuddering mage in her hands. Oh, dark luck rule: were there spells on a Chosen that called for aid by themselves?

Saeraede straightened, eyes blazing, and snarled, 'Who-?'

The light that stabbed down the shaft this time was no flash of destruction but a golden column of more lasting sorcery. Four figures rode its magic smoothly down into the cavern of the throne, boots first.

Three of the men in that column of light were old and stout and amazed. Caladaster, Beldrune, and Tabarast were all staring in awe at their companion. The quiet Harper had just broken a spell that had shaken the very trees around in its passing, and swept away a thick stone floor in the doing with a casual wave of his hand. He'd taken a few steps forward, smiled reassuringly at them, and another gesture had swept them up into waiting radiance and borne them down the shaft together in its glowing heart.

"Elminster," the fourth man said crisply, as his boots touched the stone floor as lightly as a falling feather kisses the earth, "stand away from yon runes. Mystra forbids us to do what you are attempting."

A gasping Elminster had only just then recovered the power of speech. He turned with a stiff, awkward lurch, limbs trembling, and said sharply through lips that were thin and blue, "Mystra forbids us to do, never to look. Who are you?"

The man smiled slightly, and his eyes became two lances of magical fire, stabbing across the cavern at Saeraede. "Call me…Azuth," he replied.

"The spell failed again, l-lord," the man in robes said, his voice not quite steady.

The Lord Esbre Felmorel nodded curtly. "You have our leave to withdraw. Go not where we cannot summon you in haste, if need be."

"Lord, it shall be so," the wizard murmured. He did not…quite…break into a run as he left the chamber, but the eyes of both guards at the door flickered as he passed.

"Nasmaerae?"

Lady Felmorel lifted unhappy eyes to his and said, "This is none of my doing, lord. Prayers to Most Holy Azuth are as close as I come to the Art now. This I swear."

A large and hairy hand closed over hers. "Be at ease, lady. I cannot forget that hard lesson any more than you can. I know you forget not, and transgress not. I have seen your blood upon the tiles before the altar, and seen you at prayer. You humiliate yourself as only one who truly believes can."

A smile touched his lips for a moment, and stole away again. "You frighten the men more now than you ever did when you ruled this castle by your sorcery, you know. They say you talk with Azuth every night."

"Esbre," his lady whispered, holding her eyes steady upon his despite the blush that had turned her face, throat, and beyond crimson, "I do. And I am more frightened right now than ever I was when Azuth stripped my Art from me before you. All magic is awry, all over the Realms. It will be down to the sharpest sword and the cunning of the wolf once more, and not one of our hired mages will be able to aid us!"

"And what is so bad about trusting only in sharp swords and the strong arms and cunning of warriors?"

"Esbre," the Lady Nasmaerae whispered, bringing her lips up to brush his…but too slowly for him to miss seeing the bright glimmer of unshed tears welling up in her eyes, "How long can you stand against foe after foe without the spells of our mages to hew them down for you? How many sharp swords and how much cunning does an orc horde have?"

A chiming as of many bells rang out across the chamber. It nearly deafened Elminster, as the chill wind that carried it raced through him, searing him once more into frozen immobility. The ghostly mist that had been Saeraede was spiraling about him, coiling and twining…seemingly unharmed by the beams of fire Azuth had hurled, that roared through her into Elminster.

Ice, then fire…fire that lifted him off his feet in a whirlwind of battling mist and flames and set him down again staggering, too overwhelmed to do more than bleat in wordless pain.

"Here," Tabarast mumbled, through lips that were white and trembling with fear, "that's our Elminster you're smiting, sir…Your, er, Divineness, sir!"

"Break free of her," the Harper who was Azuth said quietly, his gaze no longer flaming…but now bent on the pain-narrowed eyes of Elminster, "or you are doomed."

"I'd say you're doomed anyway," a sneering voice said from above…and five staves spat in unison, hurling a rending rain of doom down the shaft.

The Overmistress of the Acolytes strode through the black curtain of hanging chains with every inch of the cruel authority that made her so feared among the underclergy. The cruel barbed lash rode upon her shoulder, ready to snap forward at the slightest act or omission that displeased her, and her face beneath the horned black mask wore a smile of cruel anticipation. Even the two guardian Priestesses of the Chamber shrank back from her, she ignored them as she strode on, the metal-shod heels of her thigh-high black boots clicking on the tiles, and shouldered through the three curtains of fabric into the innermost place of the Dark-lady's contemplation…the Pool of Shar.

A figure moved in the gloom beyond the pool: a figure in a familiar horned headdress and deep purple mantle. Dread Sister Klalaerla went to her knees immediately, holding forth her lash in both hands.

With leisurely tread the Darklady came around the inky waters and took it from her. The Overmistress immediately bowed forward to kiss the knife-blade toes of the Darklady's boots, holding her tongue against the cold, bloodstained metal until the lash came down across her own back.

It burned, despite the webwork of crossed lacings that were part of her own garb, but it was a mark of pride not to flinch or gasp, she held firm, waiting for the second blow that would mark her superior's displeasure, or the rain of cuts that meant Avroana's fury was aroused.

None came, and with a smooth motion that almost managed to conceal her relief, she straightened to a sitting position once more, for Avroana to put the lash to her lips. She kissed it, received it back, and relaxed. The ritual was satisfied.

"Your Darkness?" she asked, as was the custom.

"Klalaerla," the Darklady said, almost urgently…her familiarity made the Overmistress stiffen with excitement…"I need you to do something for me. Despite Narlkond's assurances, those five Dreadspells are going to fail us. You must be the striking hand that rewards them for their misdeeds. If they betray the House of Holy Night, you must bring the justice of the House to them, whatever the danger to yourself. I demand it. The Flame of Darkness herself demands it. Dearest of my believers, will you do this for me?"

"Gladly," Klalaerla said, and meant it. To travel outside the House once more! To breathe the free winds of Faerun, out in the open, and see lands spread out before her once more! Oh, Avroana! "Lady most kind," she said, her voice trembling, "what must I do?"

The noise smote their ears like a blow. Dust curled up, the ground shuddered and heaved beneath their boots, and here and there around the ruins slabs of stone whirled aloft, thrust into the air by geysers of rocketing vapor.

The five Dreadspells exchanged awed, delighted glances, the roaring of their unleashed magic swallowing their shouts of excited approval, and poured down death until Elryn slapped at their arms and waved the scepters in his hands…weapons he'd snatched from his belt after his staff sputtered out.

When he had their attention, the senior Dark Brother aimed the scepters at an angle toward the floor beside the shaft. If their fire burst through into the cavern below, it would burn an angled path reaching to where Elryn's spying spell had shown him the staggering Chosen, near a throne and a ring or half-ring of runes that could perhaps, just perhaps, be made to explode.

The destruction of a Chosen was, after all, their holy mission. As Femter, Vaelam, and Hrelgrath aimed their staves with undaunted enthusiasm, Elryn stepped back a pace or two and saw Daluth, on the far side of the group, doing the same. They exchanged mirthless smiles. If there was a backlash, someone had to survive to take word to the distant Darklady…or, if it raced along the linkage she used to spy on them all, to see what fate she suffered. Perhaps it would even be one that would let two false wizards go their separate ways in Faerun, so heavily laden with enchanted items that they could barely stand.

A more prudent time for such moondreams would come later…when they weren't standing in a haunted ruin near sunset, at the heart of a killing forest emptied of life, with a known Chosen and a madman who thought he was a god and the ghost of a sorceress locked in battle somewhere close by under their feet, hurling spells around and over old and powerful spell runes cut into the stone floor for some old and very important purpose.

The thunder of destructive magic roared on unabated as the junior Dreadspells laughed and exulted in the sheer rush of power under their command. Walls toppled, smashing wardrobes flat, as the floors that supported them melted away and tumbled into an ever-lengthening chasm. Trees all around groaned and creaked as the ground shifted.

Daluth kept his own wands trained straight down, at the self-styled Azuth and his companions. He'd seen the casual waves of a hand that had wrought what it took most archmages long and complicated rituals to achieve. God or avatar or boldly bluffing archmage, whatever it was must be destroyed.

Elryn aimed his scepters to Fire through the opened, dust-choked space in the wake of the three staves… which were now, one by one, shuddering to exhaustion, to be tossed aside in favor of Netherese scepters whose blasts were almost as potent. Chosen or not, no lone wizard could stand unscathed in the face of such destruction. Elryn snarled as a scepter crumbled to dust, and snatched forth another to replace it. No, there was no chance at all that a man could survive this. Why, then, was he so uneasy?

The end of the cavern vanished in tumbling stones and the flash and rock spray of spell-wrought explosions. Floor slabs bounced upward as a shock wave rolled through them, toppling the throne. More rocks broke away and fell from the ceiling, bouncing amid the roiling fury there, on his knees, a dazed Elminster watched through pain-blurred eyes as the collapse of the ceiling continued in a rough line heading toward him, chunks of stone larger than he was crashing down or being hurled aside in an endless roaring tide.

Someone or something aloft must be trying to slay him, or destroy the runes … not that he faced any dearth of foes nearer at hand.

Saeraede, who must have lied to him about everything except who put the runes here, was riding him like a mounted knight, her claws around his throat and searing his back with talons of icy iron. He knew before he tried that no amount of rolling or smashing himself into a wall could harm or dislodge her, how can one crush or scrape away a wisp of ghostly mist?

Move he must, though, or be buried or torn apart by the snarling, smoking bolts and beams of magic that were gnawing their way through earth and stone to reach him. El groaned and crawled a little way along heaving stones…until the runes of Karsus erupted into white-hot columns of flame, one by one. As they licked and seared the collapsing ceiling, magic played all around the cavern, purple lightning dancing and strange half-seen shapes and images forming and collapsing and forming again in an endless parade.

The last prince of Athalantar smashed his nose and shoulder into a floor-slab that was heaving upward to meet him, and rolled over with a gasp of pain and despair. As he clawed at the edges of the stone with bloody, feeble fingers, trying to drag himself upright again, the stone melted away into smoke and rending magic burst into him.

Ah, well, this is it … forgive me, Mystra.

But no agony followed, and nothing plucked at his flesh, to melt and sear and reave….

Instead, he was rolled over as if by the empty air, and glowing nothingness enclosed him in ropes of radiance. Dimly, through his tears and the roiling motes of light, Elminster saw magic rushing toward him from all sides, being drawn to him, veering in its dancing to race in.

Wild laughter rose around him, high and sharp and exultant. Saeraede! She was wrapped around him, clinging in a web of glowing mists that grew thicker and brighter as she gorged herself on magic, a ghost of bright sorcery.

Sunlight was stabbing down into the riven cavern, now, but the dancing dust cloaked everything in gloom…everything but the rising giant built around Elminster's feebly writhing form. The rune-flames were twisting in midair to flow into Saeraede, and she was rising ever higher, a thing of crackling flame. El strained to look up at her…and two dark flecks among the magical fire became eyes that looked back at him in cold triumph.. until a mouth swam out of the conflagration to join them and gave him a cruel smile.

"You're mine now, fool," she whispered, in a hoarse hiss of fire, "for the little while you'll last…."

"Lord Thessamel Arunder, the Lord of Spells," the steward announced grandly, as the doors swung wide. A wizard strode slowly through them, a cold sneer upon his sharp features. He wore a high-collared robe of unadorned black that made his thin frame look like a tomb obelisk, and a shorter, more lushly built lady in a gown of forest green clung to his arm, her large brown eyes dancing with lively mischief.

"Goodsirs," he began without courtesies, "why come you here to me once more this day? How many times must you hear my refusal before the words sink through your skulls?"

"Well met, Lord Arunder," said the merchant Phelbellow, in dry tones. "The morning finds you well, I trust?"

Arunder gave him a withering glare. "Spare me your toadying, rag seller. I'll not sell this house, raised by mighty magic, nor any wagon length of my lands, no matter how sweetly you grovel, or how much gold you offer. What need have I for coins? What need have I for gowns, for that matter?"

"Aye, I'll grant that," one of the other merchants grunted. "Can't see him looking like much in a good gown. No knees for it."

"No hips, neither," someone else added.

There were several sputters of mirth from the merchants crowded at the doorway, the wizard regarded them all with cold scorn, and said softly, "I weary of these insults. If you are not gone from my halls by the time I finish the Ghost Chant, the talons of my guardian ghosts shall…"

"Lady Faeya," Hulder Phelbellow asked, "has he not seen the documents?"

"Of course, Goodsir Phelbellow," the lady in green said in musical tones. Favoring them all with a smile, she stepped from her lord and drew forth a strip of folded vellum, "and he's signed them, too."

She proffered them to Phelbellow, who unfolded them eagerly, the men behind him crowding around to see.

The Lord of Spells gaped at the paper and the merchants, then at Faeya. "W-what befalls here?" he gasped.

"A sensible necessity, my lord," she replied sweetly. "I'm so glad you saw the good sense in signing it. A most handsome offer…enough to allow you to retire from your castings entirely, if you desire."

"I signed nothing," Arunder gasped, white-faced.

"Oh, but you did, lord…and so ardently, too," she replied, eyes dancing. "Have you forgotten? You remarked at the time upon the hardness and flatness of my belly that made your penmanship such ease. You signed it with quite a flourish, as I recall."

Arunder stiffened. "But … that was…"

"Base trickery?" one of the merchants chuckled. "Ah, well done, Faeya!"

Someone else barked with laughter, and a third someone contributed a murmur of, "That's rich, that is."

"Apprentice," the Lord of Spells whispered savagely, " what have you done?

The Lady Faeya drew three swift paces away from him, into the heart of the merchants, who melted aside to make way for her like mist before flame, and turned back to face him, placing her hands on her hips.

"Among other things, Thessamel," she told him softly, "I've slain two men this last tenday, who came to settle old scores since your spells failed you…and word spread of it."

"Faeya! Are you mad? Telling these…"

"They know, Thess, they know," his lady told him with cold scorn. "The whole town knows. Every mage has his hands full of wild spells, not just you. If you paid one whit of attention to Faerun outside your window, you'd know that already."

The Lord of Spells had turned as pale as old bones and was gaping at her, mouth working like a fish gasping out of water. Everyone waited for him to find his voice again, it took quite a while.

"But… your spells still work, then?" he managed to ask, at last.

"Not a one," she said flatly. "I killed them with this." She drew forth the tiny dagger from its sheath at her hip, then threw back her left sleeve to lay bare a long, angry-looking line of pine gum and wrapped linens. "That's how I got this."

"Were these merchants also coming to…to…?" Arunder asked faintly, swaying back on his heels. His hands were trembling like those of a sick old man.

"I went to them," Faeya told him in biting tones, "to beg them to make again the offer you so charmingly refused two months ago. They were good enough to oblige, when they could well have set their dogs on me: the apprentice of the man who turned three of them into pigs for a night."

There were angry murmurs of remembrance and agreement from among the merchants around her. Arunder stepped back and raised a hand to cast a spell out of sheer habit…before dropping it with a look of sick despair.

His lady drew herself up and said more calmly, "So now the deal's done. Your tower and all these lands, from high noon today henceforth, belong to this cabal of merchants, to use as they see fit."

"And-and what happens to me? Gods, woma…"

Faeya held up a hand, and the wizard's ineffectual gibbering ended as if cut off by a knife. Someone chuckled at that.

"We, my lord, are free to live unmolested in the South Spire, casting spells…so long as they harm or work ill upon no one upon this holding…as much as we desire … or are able to. You, Thess, receive two hundred thousand gold pieces…that's why all of these good men are here…all the firewood we require, and a dozen deer a year, prepared for the table."

Without a word, Hulder Phelbellow laid a sack upon the side table. It landed with the heavy clink of coins. Whaendel the butcher followed him, then, one by one, all of the others, the sacks building up until they were reaching up the wall, atop a table that creaked in protest.

Arunder's eyes bulged. "But… you can't have gold enough, none of you!"

His lady rejoined him in a graceful green shifting, and laid a comforting hand on his arm. "They have a backer, Thess. Now thank them politely. We've some packing to do…or you will be wearing my gowns."

"I–I…"

Her hitherto gentle hand thrust hard into his ribs.

"My lords," Arunder gulped, "I don't know how to thank you…"

"Thessamel," Phelbellow said genially, "you just did. Have our thanks, too…and fare thee well in the South Spire, eh?"

Arunder was still gulping as the merchants filed out, chuckling. The noises he was making turned to whimpers, however, when their withdrawal revealed the man who'd been sitting calmly behind them all the while, the faint glow of deadly magics playing along the naked broadsword that was laid across his knees. That blade was in the capable grasp of the large and hairy hands of the famous warrior Barundryn Harbright, whose smile, as he rose and looked straight into the wizard's eyes, was a wintry thing. "So we meet again, Arunder"

"You…!" the wizard's snarl was venomous.

"You're my tenant now, mage, so spare me the usual hissed curses and spittle. If you anger me enough, I'll take you under my arm down to the stream where the little ones play, and spank your behind until it's as red as a radish. I'm told that won't hamper your spellcasting one bit." One large, blunt-fingered hand waved casually through the air past Arunder's nose.

The wizard blinked in alarm. "What? Who…?".

"Told me so?" Harbright lifted his chin in a fond smile that was directed past Arunder's shoulder.

The Lord of Spells whirled around in time to see Faeya's catlike smile drifting out the door they'd come in by, together. The rest of her accompanied it, a vision in forest green.

Lord Thessamel Arunder moaned, swayed on his feet, and turned, on the verge of tears of rage, to run away from it all…only to come to an abrupt halt, with a squeak of real alarm, as he found himself about to run right into the edge of Harbright's glowing blade.

His eyes rose, slowly and unwillingly, from the steel that barred his way to the huge and hulking warrior who held it. There was something like pity in Barundryn Harbright's eyes as he rumbled, "Why are wizards, with all their wits, so slow to learn life's lessons?"

The blade swept down and away, seeking its sheath, and a large and steadying hand came down on the wizard's shaking shoulder. "Mages tend to live longer, Arunder," Harbright said gently, "if they manage to resist their most attractive temptations."

The Sharrans were beginning to sweat now, from the sheer strain of aiming and holding steady as the Art they wielded punched aside old stones and earth, to lay open a fortress and slay the beings below. Elryn watched Femter wince and shake the smoking fragments of a ring off one finger, as Hrelgrath tossed aside his third wand and Daluth slid one failing scepter back into his belt.

"Enough," Elryn bellowed, waving his hands. "Enough, Dreadspells of Shar!" Something had to be saved in case they met with other foes this day…or, gods above, there was someone still alive down there.

The priests-turned-wizards turned their heads in the sudden peace to blink at him, almost as if they'd forgotten who and where they were.

"We have a holy task, Dark Brothers," Elryn reminded them, letting them hear the regret in his voice, "and it is not melting away earth and stone in a forgotten ruin in the heart of a forest. Our quarry is the Chosen, how fares he?"

Three heads peered at roiling dust. All five looked down the shaft where they'd begun, where the dust was but a few flowing tongues. There was rubble down there, and…

One of the Sharrans cried out in disbelief.

The Harper who'd claimed to be Azuth was looking calmly back up at them, standing more or less where he'd been when their barrage began. The three old men, still blinking at him in awe, stood around him. He, they, and the floor around the bottom of the shaft seemed untouched.

"Finished?" he asked quietly, looking up at them with eyes of steady, storm-smoke gray.

Elryn felt cold fear catch at the back of his throat and slide slowly down into the pit of his stomach, but Femter snarled, "Shar take the man!" and snatched a wand from his belt.

Before Elryn or Daluth could stop him, Femter leaned over the well and snarled the word that sent a streak of flame down, down into the gloom below, straight at the upturned face of the gray-eyed man.

The Harper didn't move, but his mouth somehow stretched wider than a man's mouth should be able to… and the flames fell right into him. He shuddered for a moment as all of the fire plunged into his vitals. By the stumbling of the three old men around him, it seemed some sort of magic was keeping them at bay, moving them as he moved.

A moment later the fireball burst with a dull rumbling. The Harper stood with an unconcerned expression on his face as smoke whirled out of his ears.

He gave the watching Sharrans a reproving look and remarked, "Needs a little more pepper."

The Dreadspells were screaming and fleeing wildly even before Azuth lowered his head and looked again across the riven cavern at Elminster. "I mean what I say," he said gravely. "You must get free of her."

"I…can't," Elminster gasped, staring into the dark eyes of Saeraede, as she reared up over him in triumph like some sort of giant snake, twining around him in large and tightening coils.

"And you never will," she breathed triumphantly, her cold lips inches from his. He could feel the chilling frost of her breath on his face as she purred, "With the powers of a Chosen and all the might Karsus left here, I can defy even such as him."

She lifted her head to give Azuth a challenging glare as she clamped one giant hand of solid mist around El's throat. Other tentacles of mist rose around them both in a protective forest, undulating and lashing the tossed and shattered stone slabs.

The last prince of Athalantar struggled to breathe in her grasp, so throttled he couldn't speak or shout, as the ghostly sorceress leisurely turned the uppermost spire of her mists to a lush and very solid human torso, curvaceous and deadly.

Slim fingers grew fingernails like long talons, and when they were as long as Saeraede's hand, she reached almost lovingly for his mouth.

"We'll just have the tongue out, I think," she said aloud, "to forestall any nasty…ah, but wait a bit, Saeraede, you want him to tell you a few things before he's mute…. Hmmmm …"

Razor-sharp talons drifted just inches past Elminster's tightly constricted throat, to slice into the first flesh she found bared. Plowing deep gashes across the strangling mage's neck, she flicked his blood away in droplets that were caught in her whirling mists and held her bloody talons exultantly up to the sunlight.

"Ah, but I'm alive again," Saeraede hissed, "alive and whole! I breathe, I feel" She brought that hand to her mouth, bit her own knuckles, and held the hand out toward the grimly watching avatar of Azuth to let him see the welling blood. "I bleed! I liver

Then she screamed, swayed, and stared down, dark eyes widening in disbelief, at the gore-slick, smoking sword tip that had just burst through her breast from behind.

"Some people live far longer than they should," said Ilbryn Starym silkily from behind the hilt, as he stared gloating into the eyes of the mage still frozen in Saeraede's grasp. "Don't you agree, Elminster?"

A door was flung wide, to boom its broken song against a heavily paneled wall. It had been years since the tall, broad-shouldered woman who now stood in the doorway, her eyes snapping in alarm and anger, had worn the armor she hated so much…but as she stood glaring into the room, the half-drawn long sword at her hip gleaming, she looked every inch a warrior.

Sometimes Rauntlavon wished he was more handsome, strong, and about ten years older. He'd have given a lot for so magnificent a woman to smile at him.

Right now, she was doing anything but smiling. She was looking down at him as if she'd found a viper in her chamber pot…and his only consolation was that he wasn't the only mage rolling around on the floor under her dark displeasure, his master, the gruffly sardonic elf Iyriklaunavan, was gasping on the fine swanweave rug not a handspan away.

"Iyrik, by all the gods," the Ladylord Nuressa growled, "what befell here?"

"My farscrying spell went awry," the elf snarled back at her. "If it hadn't been for the lad, here, all those books'd be aflame now, and we'd be hurling water and running with buckets for our lives' worth!"

Rauntlavon's face flamed as the ladylord took a step forward and looked down at him with a rather kinder expression. "I-it was nothing, Great Lady," he stammered.

"Master Rauntlavon," she said gently, "an apprentice should never contradict his master-of-magecraft … nor belittle the judgment of any one of The Four Lords of the Castle."

Rauntlavon blushed as maroon as his robes and emitted the immortal words, "Yujus-yujus-er-ah-uhmmm, I, ah…"

"Yes, yes, boy, brilliantly explained as usual," Iyriklaunavan said dismissively, rolling to his elbows. "Now belt up and look around the room for me: is anything amiss? Anything broken? Smoldering? Aflame? Hop, now!"

Rauntlavon hopped, quite thankfully, but kept his attention more on what two of The Four Lords of the Castle were saying. They'd all been debonair and successful adventurers, less than a decade ago, and one never knew what wild and exciting things they might say.

Well, nothing about mating dragons this time.

"So tell me, Iyrik," the Ladylord was saying in her I-really-shouldn't-have-to-be-this-patient voice, "just why your farscrying spell blew up. Is it one of those magics you'd just be better off not trying? Or were you distracted by some nubile elf maid seen in your spying, perhaps?"

"Nessa," the elf growled…Rauntlavon had always admired the way he could look so agile and elegant and youthful, and yet be more gruff than any dwarf…as he rose and fixed her with one glaring that's- quite-enough eye, "this is serious. For us all, everywhere in Faerun.

Stop playing the swaggering warrior bitch for just a moment and listen. For once."

Rauntlavon froze, his head sunk between his shoulders, wondering if folk really survived the full fury of Great Lady Nuressa a-storming…and just how swiftly and brutally she'd notice him and have him removed from the room.

Very and with iron calm, it seemed.

"Master Rauntlavon," she said calmly, "you may leave us now. Close the door on your way out."

"Apprentice Rauntlavon," his master said, just as calmly, "it is my will that you abide with us. Send Master Rauntlavon out, and close the door behind him, remaining here with us."

Rauntlavon swallowed, drew in a deep breath, and turned around to face them, hardly daring to raise his eyes. "I–I've found nothing amiss at this end of the chamber," he announced, his voice higher and rather more unsteady than he wished it would be. "Shall I examine the other half of it now … or later?"

"Now will be fine, Rauntlavon," the ladylord said in a voice of velvet menace. "Pray proceed."

The apprentice actually shivered ere he bowed and mumbled, "As my Great Lady wishes."

"It's a wonderful thing to make men and boys fear you, Nessa, but does it really make up for your years under the lash? The escaped slave gets even by enslaving others?" His master's voice was biting, Rauntlavon tried not to let his momentary hesitation show. The ladylord had been a slave? Kneeling naked under a slaver's lash, in the dust and the heat? Gods, but he'd never have…

"Do you think we can leave my past careers in my own bedchamber closet, Iyrik?" the ladylord said almost gently. Her next sentence, however, was almost a battlefield shout. "Or is there some pressing need to tell all the world?

"I won't tell anyone, I won't…I swear I won't!" Rauntlavon babbled, going to his knees on the rug.

He heard the Great Lady sigh and felt ironlike fingers on his shoulder, hauling him back to his feet. Other fingers took hold of his chin and turned his head as sharply as a whip is flicked. The apprentice found himself staring into the Lady Nuressa's smoky eyes from a distance of perhaps the length of his longest finger.

"Rauntlan," she said, addressing him as he liked his handful of friends to…a short name he'd had no idea any of the lords even knew about, "you know that one of the most essential skills any wizard can have is to keep the right secrets, and keep them well. So I shall test you now, to see if you're good enough to remain in the castle as a mage-in-training … or a wizard in your own right, in time to come. Keep my secret, and stay. Let it out…and be yourself shut out of our lands, chased to our borders with the flat of my blade finding your backside as often as I can land it."

Rauntlavon heard his master start to say something, but the ladylord made some sort of gesture he couldn't see behind her back, and Iyriklaunavan fell silent again.

"Do you understand, Rauntlan?"

Her voice was as calm and as gentle as if she'd been discussing haying a field, Rauntlavon swallowed, nodded, squirmed under the hard points of her gaze, and managed to say, "Great Lady, I swear to keep your secret. I shall abide by your testing.. and if ever I let it slip, I shall come to you myself to admit the doing, so the chase can begin at your convenience."

Her dark brows rose. "Well said, Master Apprentice. Agreed, then."

She took a quick step back from him and lifted her gown unhurriedly to display a tanned, muscular leg so long and shapely that he swallowed twice, unable to tear his eyes from it. Somewhere far, far away, his master chuckled, but Rauntlavon was lost in the slow but continuing rise of fine fabric, up, up to her hip…he was swallowing hard, now, and knew his face must be as bright as a lamp…where his eyes locked on a purplish-white brand. The cruel design was burned deep into her flesh, just below the edge of the bone that made her hip jut out. She traced a circle around it with one long finger and asked in a dry voice, "Seen enough, Rauntlan?"

He almost choked, trying to swallow and nod fervently at the same time, and somewhere in the midst of his distress the gown went to her ankles again, her hand clapped his shoulders like a club crashing down, and her deep voice said in his ear, "So we have a secret to share now, you and I. Something to remember." She shoved him away gently and added, "I believe this end of the room hasn't been fully inspected yet, Master Apprentice."

Her voice was a brisk goad once more, but somehow Rauntlavon found himself almost grinning as he strode away to the end of the room and announced, "Inspection resumes, Great Lady…and sharing begins!"

His master laughed aloud, and after a moment Rauntlavon heard a low, thrilling murmur that must have been the ladylord chuckling.

She used the lash of her voice on Iyriklaunavan next, breaking off in mid-chuckle to snap, "Enough time wasted, mage. You frighten me up from my table with a map half drawn and my soup growing cold, then go all coy about why. What's so 'serious' that your apprentice must hear about it alongside me? Do you think you can get around to telling me about this oh-so-serious matter before, say, nightfall!"

"I meant it when I said this was serious, Nessa," Rauntlavon's master said quietly. "Put the edge of your tongue away for a moment and listen. Please."

He paused then, and…wonders! Rauntlavon even turned around to see, earning him an almost amused glance from the Great Lady…the Ladylord Nuressa gave him silence, waiting to hear him speak.

Iyriklaunavan blinked, seeming himself surprised, then said swiftly, "You know that magic…all magic not bolstered by draining a few sorts of enchanted items… is going wrong. Spells twisting to all sorts of results, untrustworthy and dangerous. Some mages are hiding in their towers, unable to defend themselves against anyone who might try to settle grudges. Magic has gone wild. If fewer folk knew about it, I'd say that this should be our secret…Rauntlavon's and mine own…for you to keep, or else. It will come as no surprise to you that many mages have been trying to find out why this darkness has befallen. I am one of them."

"And that's even less of a surprise," the Lady Nuressa said quietly. Rauntlavon's head snapped around to regard her somber face. He'd never heard her speak so gently before. She sounded almost … tender.

"I have no items to waste in bolstering my spells," Iyriklaunavan continued, "so the boy…Rauntlavon…has been my bulwark, using his spells to steady mine. Word has even come to us that some wizards…and even priests of the faiths of the Weave…believe divine Mystra and Azuth themselves have been corrupting magic deliberately, for some purpose mortals cannot even hazard."

"You worship our gods of magecraft?"

"Nessa," Iyriklaunavan said calmly, "I don't even have a bedchamber closet to keep my secrets in. I'm trying to hurry this, really I am just listen."

Nuressa leaned back against one of the lamp-girt pillars that held up the ceiling of the spell chamber, and gestured for the elf mage to continue. She didn't even look irritated.

"Just now we were seeking but had not yet called up a place in our scrying, the enchantment being just complete," Iyriklaunavan continued, "when I felt one thing, and saw another. I think everyone in Faerun who was attempting a scrying at the time felt what I did: the willful, reckless release of many wizards' staves at once, in one place, all directed at the same target."

"You mean mages everywhere feel it, whenever one wizard blasts another?" Nuressa's voice was incredulous. "No wonder you're all so difficult."

"No, we do not normally feel such things…nor have the violence of feeling anything strike us so hard that our own spells collapse into wildfire," Rauntlavon's master told her. "The reason we did this time was the target of this unleashing: the High One. I saw him, standing at the bottom of a shaft with three mortal mages, while magic seeking to destroy him rained down…and his attention was elsewhere."

"Azuth? Who was crazed enough to use magic to try to blast down a god of magic?" The ladylord looked surprised.

"That I did not see," Iyriklaunavan replied. "I did, however, see what Azuth was regarding. A ghostly sorceress, who was trying to slay a Chosen of Mystra."

"What's that?" the Great Lady asked. "Some sort of servant of the goddess?"

"Yes," the elf mage said grimly, "and he was someone you might remember. Cast your thoughts back to a day when we fled from a tomb…a tomb furnished with pillars that erupted in eyes. A mage was hanging above us there, asleep or trapped, and came out after we fled. He asked you what year it was."

"Oh, yesss," the ladylord murmured, her eyes far away, "and I told him."

"And thereby we earned the favor of the goddess Mystra," Iyriklaunavan told her, "who delivered this castle into our hands."

The Lady Nuressa frowned. "I thought Amandarn won title to these lands while dicing with some merchant lords…hazarding all our coins in the process," she said.

Rauntlavon stood very still, not wanting to be ejected again now. Surely this was an even more dangerous secret than…

"Amandarn lost all our coins, Nessa. Folossan nearly killed him for it…and they had to flee when he stole a few bits back to buy a meal that night and got caught at it. The two of them hid in a shrine to Mystra…rolled right in under the altar and hid under its fine cloth. There they slept, though both of them swear magic must have dragged them into slumber, for they'd had little to drink and were all excited from their flight and the danger. When they awoke, all of our coins were back in Amandarn's pouch…along with the title to the castle."

The Great Lady's brow arched and she asked, "And you believe this tale?"

"Nessa, I used spells to glean every last detail of it out of both their heads, after they told me. It happened."

"I see," the Great Lady said calmly. "Rauntlavon, be aware that this is another secret shared between us here…and only us here, or you'll have to flee four Lords of the Castle, not merely one."

"Yes, Great Lady," the apprentice said, then swallowed and faced them both. "There's something I should say, now. If something happens to Great Azuth…or Most Holy Mystra…and magic keeps crumbling, we all share a grave problem."

"And what is that, Rauntlavon?" The Lady Nuressa asked, in almost kindly tones, her fingers caressing the pommel of her long sword.

Rauntlavon's eyes dropped to those fingers…whose fabled strength was one of the rocks upon which his world stood…then back up to meet her smoky eyes.

"I think we must pray for Azuth or find some way to aid him. The castle was built with much magic," he told the two lords, the words coming out in a rush. "If its spells fall, it will fall…and us with it."

The Great Lady's expression did not change. Her eyes turned to meet those of the Lord Iyriklaunavan. "Is this true?"

The elf merely nodded. Nuressa stared at him for a moment, her face still calm, but Rauntlavon saw that her hand was now closed around the hilt of the long sword and gripping so tightly that the knuckles were white. Her eyes swung back to his.

"Well, Rauntlavon…have you any plan for preventing such doom?"

Rauntlavon spread empty hands, wishing wildly that he could be the hero, and see love for him awaken in her eyes … wishing he could give her more than his despair. "No, Nuressa," he was astonished to hear himself calmly whispering. "I'm only an apprentice. But I will die for you, if you ask me."

He drew his blade out of the swaying sorceress with savage glee, to thrust it into the Great Foe he'd pursued for so long, the grasping, stinking human who'd dared to stain bright Cormanthyr with his presence and doom the House of Starym, now helpless before him, able to move just his eyes…fittingly…to see whence his doom came.

"Know as you die, human worm," Ilbryn hissed, "that the Starym aven…"

And those were the last words he ever spoke, as all the magic that the ancient sorceress had drawn into herself rushed out again, in a fiery flood of raw magical energy that consumed the blade that had spilled it and the elf whose hand held that blade, all in one raging wave that crashed against the far wall of the cavern and ate through solid rock as if it was soft cheese, thrusting onward until it found daylight on a slope beyond, and the groan of toppling trees and falling stones began in earnest.

Saeraede wailed, flames streaming from her mouth, and fell away from Elminster, her mists receding into a standing cloud whose dark and despairing eyes pleaded with his for a few fleeting moments before it collapsed and dwindled away to whirling dust.

El was still staggering and coughing, his hands at his ravaged throat, when Azuth strode forward and unleashed a magic whose eerie green glow flooded the runes and the dust that had been Saeraede alike.

Like a gentle wave rolling up a beach, the god's spell spread out to the crevice Ilbryn had hidden in and every other last corner of the ravaged cavern. Then it flickered, turned a lustrous golden hue that made Beldrune gasp, and rose from the floor, leaving scoured emptiness behind.

Azuth strode through the rising magic without pause, caught hold of the reeling Elminster by the shoulders, and marched him one step farther. In mid-stride they vanished together…leaving three old mages gaping at a fallen throne in a shaft of sunlight in a pit in the forest that was suddenly silent and empty.

They took a few steps toward the place where so much death and sorcery had swirled…far enough to see that the runes were now an arc of seven pits of shivered stone…then stopped and looked at each other.

"They're gone an' all, eh?" Beldrune said suddenly. That's it…all that fury and struggle and in the space of a few breaths … that's it. All done, and us left behind an' forgotten."

Tabarast of the Three Sung Curses raised elegantly white tufted eyebrows and asked, "You expected things to be different, this once?"

"We were worthy of a god's personal protection," Caladaster almost whispered. "He walked with us and shielded us when we were endangered…danger he did not share, or he'd never have been able to deal with that fireball as he did."

"That was something, wasn't it?" Beldrune chuckled. "Ah, I can see myself telling the younglings that… a little more pepper, indeed."

"I believe that's why he did it," Tabarast told him. "Yes, we were honored…and we're still alive, unlike that ghost sorceress and the elf … that's an achievement, right there."

They looked at each other again, and Beldrune scratched at his chin, cleared his throat and said, "Yes… ahem. Well. I think we can just walk out, there at the end where the fire burst out of the cavern, that way."

"I don't want to leave here just yet," Caladaster replied, kicking at the cracked edge of one of the pits where a rune had been. "I've never stood with folk of real power before, at a spot where important things happen … and I guess I never will again. While I'm here, I feel … alive."

"Huh," Beldrune grunted, "she said that, an' look what happened to her."

Tabarast stumped forward and put his arms around Caladaster in a rough embrace, muttering, "I know just how you feel. We've got to go before dark, mind, and I'll want a tankard by then."

"A lot of tankards," Beldrune agreed.

"But somewhere quiet to sit and think, just us three," Tabarast added, almost fiercely. "I don't want to be sitting telling all the drunken farmers how we walked with a god this night, and have them laugh at us."

"Agreed," Caladaster said calmly, and turned away.

Beldrune stared at his back. "Where are you going?"

The old wizard reached the rubble-strewn bottom of the shaft and peered down at the stones. "I stood just here," he murmured, "and the god was … there." Though his voice was steady, even gruff, his cheeks were suddenly wet with tears.

"He protected us," he whispered. "He held back more magic than I've ever seen hurled before, in all my life, magic that turned the very rocks to empty air … for us, that we might live."

"Gods have to do that, y'see," Beldrune told him. "Someone has to see what they do and live to tell others. What's the good of all that power, otherwise?"

Caladaster looked at him with scorn, anger rising in his eyes, and stepped back from Beldrune. "Do you dare to laugh at divine…"

"Yes," Beldrune told him simply. "What's the good of being human, elsewise?"

Caladaster stared at him, mouth hanging open, for what seemed like a very long time. Then the old wizard swallowed deliberately, shook his head, and chuckled feebly. "I never saw things that way before," he said, almost admiringly. "Do you laugh at gods often?"

"One or twice a tenday," Beldrune said solemnly. "Thrice on high holy days, if someone reminds us when they are."

"Stand back, holy mocker," Tabarast said suddenly, waving at him. Beldrune raised his eyebrows in a silent question, but his old friend just waved a shooing hand at him and strode forward, adding, "Move those great booted hooves of yours, I said!"

"All right," Beldrune said easily, doing so, "so long as you tell me why."

Tabarast knelt in the rubble and tugged at something, a corner of bright cloth amid the stones. "Gems and scarlet fineweave?" he asked Faerun at large. "What have we here?"

His wrinkled old hands were already plucking stones aside and uncovering cloth with dexterous speed, as Beldrune went to one knee with a grunt and joined him at the task. Caladaster stood over them anxiously, afraid that, somehow, a ghostly sorceress would rise from these rags to menace them anew.

Beldrune grunted in appreciation as the red gown, with gem-adorned dragons crawling over both hips, was laid out in full…but he promptly plucked it up and handed it to Caladaster, growling as he waved at more cloth, beneath, "There's more!"

The daring black gown was greeted with an even louder grunt, but when the blue ruffles came into view and Tabarast stirred around in the stones beneath enough to be sure that these three garments were all they were likely to find, Beldrune's grunts turned into low whispers of curiosity. "Being as Azuth wasn't wearing them, that I saw, these must have come from her" he said.

Tabarast and Caladaster exchanged glances. "Being older and wiser than you," his old friend told him kindly, "we'd figured out that much already."

Beldrune stuck out his tongue in response to that and held up the blue gown for closer scrutiny.

"Do these hold power, do you think?" Tabarast asked, the black gown dangling from his fingers as Caladaster suppressed a smirk.

"Hmmph. Power or not, I'm not wearing this backless number," Beldrune replied, turning the blue ruffles around again to face him. "It goes down far enough to give the cool drafts more'n a bit of help, if you know what I mean…."